The Freedom APA
Freedom APA is an alternative press association with one expectation: participate where, when and how you are able.
Annual Membership: Participation by sending items for the mailing a minimum of once per membership year PLUS $15 for US membership; $25 for rest of world. Items for the mailing bundle may include mail art, printed journals, chapbooks, zines, cds, dvds, cassettes, envelopes, postcards, bookmarks, recipes, stamps, letters, or whatever you choose to create.
Four bundles are mailed per year. The next mailing is scheduled for June 2017. If you send materials for the June bundle, 22 items are needed.
Membership dues may be sent via Paypal: singinggrove@conknet.com
Checks may be made payable to: Frederick Moe 36 West Main Street Warner NH 03278.
$6 postpaid for a sample bundle if you’re curious to check it out before jumping in.
Freedom APA is intended to be fun & embrace the spirit of personal journalism, zine making, letter writing, graphic arts, mail art, DIY printing, poetry, homemade music, creative projects, podcasting & more. Freedom APA is not an organization nor will Freedom APA have officers or by-laws. We have however add volunteer “staff” as Freedom APA grows.
With your support, this will be an enjoyable mailing circle project full of creativity. Freedom APA is a postal activity.
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Call for Calls for Submissions: Spread the Word About Your Zine/Distro/Library!
Share your call for submissions, let people know about your distro or zine library, announce your newest zine, let people know you are crowdfunding a zine project… If you have an announcement to make that has to do with zines, do it here! Sea Green Zines wants to be your megaphone. Even better? It’s an automatic shout out on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr when you advertise here.
Big fuzzy love hearts to those who have a .jpg call for subs, but all are welcome. Get in touch by emailing theauthor[at]inkyblots.com or comment below.
Zine Review: How To Be Alone 6.1
How To Be Alone 6.1
Bastian Fox Phelan
bastianfoxphelan.com
I was not at all prepared for this zine.
How To Be Alone 6.1 is a zine by Bastian Fox Phelan about Bastian’s life. This edition follows Bastian’s thoughts about the world, writing in different environments, the importance of a writing routine, and finding one’s voice – in more ways than one.
Before I’d even read the zine, I’d jotted down the note that I enjoyed the visual pun on the cover – whether it was intended or not. How to “bee” alone, eh? Clever. Now that I’ve read it, I realise there is so much more depth and thoughtfulness in the choice and how much meaning it has to the content inside. Do I know if Bastian thought that much about it? No, but the depth of meaning in things is often left to be found by the reader rather than intentionally created by the author.
Reading this zine was, for me, like listening to a song I’d never heard before. It lured me in with soft, beautiful melodies and made me feel comfortable. With that comfort, I let my guard down. When the crescendo of conflict of hurt and pain came later in the song, I was completely unprepared and swimming with different feelings that, even days later, I’m still sorting out. But, like a truly good song, and like a truly good tale reads, it all came back to the melodies it started with but now with a different view.
Even when I am berating myself for not doing it, I do like to read about writers and their writing. I liked reading about how Bastian discovered the personal importance of creating and sticking to a writing routine (even as something deep within me rebelled at the thought of applying one to my own life).
I love how easily writing about writing transitioned to finding one’s voice – an important aspect for writers that took on a new meaning when Bastian found the courage and the voice to confront those who are rude and mean just because Bastian doesn’t follow their ideas of what “should” be. It hurt to read about what other people thought was okay but was absolutely not. But those feelings were soothed by my admiration of Bastian for standing up in the face of others’ ignorance and cruelty.
Though small in the grand scheme of things, it was also lovely to read that I am not alone in my occasional rescue of tiny creatures. It was also a lovely image to start with and come back to at the end.
How To Be Alone 6.1 is, for me, a zine that requires more reading and further contemplation. Bastian’s writing voice is beautiful, and I will definitely be tracking down other zines in this series.
Mini Zine Review: Strimp
Strimp
Simon Mackie
simonmackie22@yahoo.com
I’m still somewhat new to comics as a whole, so keep that in mind…
Strimp is a mini-zine comic printed in black and white on a single glossy piece of paper containing seven one-page comics. In Strimp, you get a glimpse into creator Simon’s mind as well as his sense of humour.
When you look at a mini-zine, it’s almost natural to make assumptions about what you’ll find inside. Strimp is another min-zine that shoves assumptions aside, however, and gives me more variety than I was expecting.
Structurally, there are single comics that fill the page as well as other multi-panel pages. The variety extends to the humour as well. Some have a bit more of the sarcastic humour that I’m used to, one is more on the punny side of things, while yet another is a bit darker.
I didn’t always understand the humour, but that’s not really here nor there.
As far as contact details go (such a recurring theme for me, isn’t it?), Simon makes it halfway there with a name but no other contact details.
I don’t know if it was Simon’s intention or not, but I feel like this zine is like a “sampler” of comic work. The different structural styles, the slightly different humour within the comics… To that effect, it certainly works, because I am curious and want to see more of his work.
Changing the Way I Look at Things
I didn’t intend to take off yesterday, but here we are, and there it is.
I’ll get to the TL;DR part first so anyone who wants to skip out the rest can. I have to adjust how I do things. I took of yesterday, and I’ll be taking off tomorrow to get myself on more solid ground. I’ll be back on Thursday and Friday with reviews… probably. I will definitely be back this weekend with calls for submissions, and next week will resume the normal way of things.
No biggie, yes?
I apologise if it seems like I’m getting into theatrics with this, but I honestly want to share this but don’t know how to go about it. I’m not looking for pity, and it only has a relation to zines rather than being about zines. In the end, though, I want this to be a conversation rather than a random spit out of information and reviews (as fun and lovely as that is). I want to tell you about the not-necessarily-zineish things that are going on in my life.
The past few weeks have been an assortment of tests and appointments with my doctor. After plenty of discussions, we were both all but convinced that I had lupus. That’s what everything pointed to, so we waited until I had a ‘flare’ of symptoms so we could do the relevant blood tests. Blood tests that came back negative. (With the exception of microcytic anemia, but that’s not an indicator of lupus.)
So we went over my history again and came to the conclusion that I need to start doing what I can do for fibromyalgia, ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis – commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but is so much more complicated than that), and restless legs syndrome.
Fibromyalgia and ME have come up as possibilities many times in the past ten years or so, but they are “diagnoses of exclusion” and I have never pursued the relevant testing. (I don’t always stick my head in the sand, but when I do…) Turns out that it took a mere ten years, and we’ve done all the testing to come around to the conclusion anyway.
What does all of this mean?
It means that, while these symptoms have been with me for many years, now they have a name. No I know it’s not just all in my head, that I’m not just lazy, and that I can’t keep operating as if it will all go away.
In many ways, this is a relief. I’ve never been good at taking care of myself, and having names for the faces, so to say, means that I feel less guilty about self-care. I’ve been going slower, going to bed earlier, sleeping in, puttering rather than mad rushing, and educating myself about the conditions. (And let me tell you, just keeping my feet and legs warm at all times has made a heap of difference.)
If I have my way, nothing will change here – other than I will endeavour to stop apologising for late posts or days when I don’t post. What will change is how I look at things, how I organise my time – especially my rest – and how I go about my days. Mostly things you won’t see or hear about.
Like I said, though, I want this space to be one in which we have conversations. Conversations that include what’s going on in my life even when it doesn’t focus on zines.
I wish you all the best for your week. I’ll be back with reviews on Thursday and Friday (99% sure that’s going to happen), calls for subs this weekend, and next week I will have a fresh happy mail post for you.
Until then…